When Did Everyone Stop Asking Me What I Wanted To Be When I Grow Up?

I pass by an older couple in the grocery store and overhear them asking a little girl what she wants to be when she grows up. This got me thinking about my own childhood and what my hopes and dreams had once been.

When I was a child, I always wanted to be a dancer. I spent countless hours watching Fame on TV as I danced around my living room, but as the years went by I found that there wasn’t a huge calling for dancers in Maine, go figure. So as I went off to college, I knew that I was going to study business and economics as that is what my grandfather stated was the most sensible thing to do, but in my heart lived an artist.

I have always needed to paint and to write. There are times that my heart spills over with all the things I need to say and I must release them in the form of prose or paint. There lurks a deep longing within my soul to express what lives inside of me and there are times that I fantasize about what it would be like to work as a writer or as an artist. I picture a life of days filled with brush strokes and creativity. Sometimes the fantasy is a life filled with the written word. Cleverly written novels line shelves in my study and they feature my picture and bio on the inside cover.

I like to think of these alternate lives when my everyday life becomes to blasé and my creative side longs to break out of my professional veneer. Perhaps my alter ego lives on another plane of existence with paint on her coveralls and a happiness deep within her heart. But, that is not my reality. I am a business woman, an instructor, someone who has to work for a living and not someone who can afford to be a “starving artist”. So, when the artist inside of me demands to pour out, I sit and pour my heart’s desires onto my blog or I grab a fresh canvas and begin to apply paint. Yet, somewhere deep inside is that child who just wishes that someone would ask me what I want to be when I grow up so that I could proudly proclaim, “an artist” and have my wish come true.

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About BusyMaineMom

I am a wife and mother of two living in the great state of Maine. I have a very active lifestyle and am always on the go, whether it is on the run with one of my daughter's activities, working, camping, or hiking the trails. My life is always in motion. So, this blog gives me some time to sit and reflect on myself and the world.
I work with people who are visually impaired or blind and they have opened my eyes to more than they will ever know. I love assisting them in regaining their independence while listening to their stories, validating their fears and giving them hope for the future.